The mysterious Voice of Command is something peculiar to werewolf authority: pack alphas have this Voice, a commanding voice that is binding on every member of their pack. They frequently use this Voice to inflict pain on errant members of their pack, before one such member goes rogue; because, when a wolf becomes rogue, they become less affected by their former alpha's Voice of Command, exhibiting an uninhibited level of autonomy that is ruinous to the harmony of the whole pack.
But beyond the Voice of Command, there is the Lycan Voice of Command. Possessed by only the Imperials and some few royal lycans, this Voice of Command is transcendental, as it can function to manipulate even reality.
And woe to any rogue wolf who thinks they can shrug off a lycan Voice of Command.
A noteworthy peculiarity about this ultimate Voice of Command, the lycan Voice of Command, is its affinity with—and effect on—natural things or nature; for there is a fable that says that the first wolves only came to howl as a result of Nature's need to have guardians for the things that have life, and obey the natural cycle of life. This, of course, doesn't include vampires. Vampires don't have life, being animated corpses with very good natural makeup; nor do they follow the natural cycle of life, like growth. For these reasons, a lycan Voice of Command would affect the wind in the trees and the sparrows in their nests, the humans in their thick taverns of wood in the winter, and the tinkling Wyrtle river coursing perpetually over highways of weed and rock. But only would the lycan Voice of Command not affect vampires.
Nor would it affect an Olligrander.
I pull through the metaphysical bonds of Mason's Voice of Command. Initially, the bonds are unyielding as stone chains. But they snap like vines when I bring my Olligrander abilities to the fore. Giving a gasp of relief, I wriggle my body underwater to make sure my whole body can move, and swim closer to Mason and Mirabella.
Even though Mason is but a half-blooded lycan bastard, his Voice of Command is still potent enough to keep Mirabella frozen in place like an ice sculpture. She stares in undisguised alarm as I swim yet closer while she remains stuck. Mason watches me with a blank stare, not in the least surprised that I broke through his edict while the bubbles around us are still in a state of stasis.
I am going to break you; I hiss telepathically to Mirabella; you have done something unforgivable. You have tried to hurt the ones I love the most, and now I must make an example of you.
I am a lycan of high standing. I hold a seat among the lesser imperial nobles. There is nothing you can do to me, she responds proudly.
Maybe. But I say let's find out. I have more aces up my sleeve than just my White powers.
I unleash an outburst of telepathy directed at Mirabella that turns the water icy cold despite the presence of two lycans. I brace my telepathy with Elderwood strength—its resilience and tenacity—to stand against the lycan. But simply attacking the lycan on a mind level is not my goal. I bring my Olligrander powers to bear again. The iciness, which was stronger when I reinforced my White powers with my Elderwood ones, takes on an eerie quality when I add my Olligrander powers to the mix, so that even Mason gives Mirabella and I some uncomfortable distance at the weird aura of power combination.
The river thrums around us, the skies become cloudy, and it rains again. All through my last telepathic battle with Mirabella, only one mind screams. And it is not mine.
Were she not frozen in place by Mason's Voice of Command, she would have certainly chewed my head off in the bare fraction of a millisecond. But with Mason's help, I have a chance to do some real damage to the lycan while she just hangs there. And this, I try with all my might.
I rip through all of Mirabella's mental defenses, my hybrid telepathic claws ready to deal some unchecked damage; when I ask out of sudden nagging concern, Where is Lauren?
Besting you, Mirabella says.
I pause, naturally, in fear at her words. Under the Wyrtle river feels like some eldritch world all on its own. Thoughts of whatever Lauren could be doing at the moment flicker like flashes of lightning through my mind: too many and too terrible to dwell on. Raising my gaze, my eyesight pierces the boundary where river meets air: mom and Toby are fine atop the bridge.
But there are a myriad other people I also care about. I bare my fangs angrily at Mirabella, who only stares back smugly; though uncertainty peeks through her sanguine orbs.
Mom? A scared voice whispers suddenly. Mom, please? —help, she is going to kill us! Mom! Aaaaarrrrgggghh!
The scream goes through my chest, like a stake through a vampire's heart. Tears swell from the fountains of my being, salted with rage and resentment: I hate everyone who thinks they can hurt the people I love. And I love this child, this child whom I have never met but calls me mom, who can't be mine, and whom I don't even know.
Mirabella mocks me, Telepathy and great power are not synonymous with wisdom, Claire. You can hold the strongest pieces on the board and still lose, she laughs. Like you are going to lose soon. Sooner than you think.
I deal the telepathic blow. My metaphysical claw falls.
The Wyrtle river detonates. And overflows its banks for meters beyond. Mason stares at me with an upraised eyebrow.
What? I'm done, I say hastily, acknowledging the urgency in my heart and the people I have to save. But before anything else, there is someone first to rescue.
Mirabella starts sinking to the river bottom slowly, limp and unconscious; Mason's Command of stillness having been shattered. We retrieve Alicia from the wreck of her car, and make for the surface. Not much time has really passed: mum is still staring down from the top of the Wyrtle Cross, an ambulance wailing ever closer towards us.
Mason shoulders Alicia. 'You know what to do,' he says to me and bounds into the woods.
I stare up at mom from the riverbank. She has a look of shock, consternation, and unbelief plastered on her face as she looks down from the red bridge. The Wyrtle river has been disturbed like some water in a piece of glassware during an earthquake. Mom doesn't understand anything she just witnessed, soggy from the downpour as she is, or what her daughter has to do with it.
I sigh.
And wipe her recent memories.
And Toby's.
***
The girl is here in Moonhaven, the child who connects to me by telepathy, albeit at the town's outskirts. I already know that she is tied to Dr Simone somehow, so that when I track her; this supposed daughter of mine; by telepathy, I am trying to find her and Dr Simone together.
Mason joins me barely a second later, slowing down to match my speed. Even still, we eat up huge distances with every stride of our legs. When I tumble to an abrupt stop, he deflects off a huge oak to break his momentum. The oak snaps like a gunshot in a shockwave of showering branch pieces and leaves.
There is a trapdoor buried under inches of the wet earth beneath our feet: I can smell the rusty metal through all the layers of soil. I barely have to grunt before Mason rends the earth with a swipe of his claws. Moldy earth rains all around us in clumps as the green trapdoor is revealed, dented in that one blow by Mason's claws. His next fist tears a hole in the ground—the trapdoor is truly crumpled this time over; and sections of the facility's roof cave in. To anyone in the underground facility, the thunder of Mason's blow would have been head-splitting.
'Bringing down the whole structure kind of defeats the whole point of the rescue, don't you think, Mason?' I snap.
He concedes the debate without making one; 'Sorry,' he shrugs.
We jump into the hole. The moldy, earthy smell isn't as bad as I primarily expected. The facility is a dark green drab of colour inside, unremarkable to the eyes. Sections of the roof are indeed in obvious ruins, still raining plaster and dust with bits of skeletal metal poking out.
The mate bond that exists between Mason and I is still siphoning information in crude form between us, to the effect that he already knows why we are here. Before I take off in the direction of the telepathic signal in my head, he hesitates and grabs my arm.
'I can't say I much care about the kid. But about Lauren… be careful,' he says through a groan.
I nod. I can tell from the pain that is waxing in his eyes that he is engaged in a battle within, as the two mate bonds he is connected to crash and clash; and try to destroy each the other. He won't be of much help in the coming minutes: if I know anything of mate bonds, it is that they are strong enough to the point of incapacitating even lycans.
I head off deeper into the facility all by myself. My senses are on full alert; I am ready to switch to infrared at a moment's notice; and my telepathic bubble is up to sense anyone who may be lurking beyond any twist or at any corner.
It isn't too long before I find the first body, twisted from what can only be superhuman strength. An ugly rifle lies shattered beside the guard. My heart gives a thump of fear. 'Dr Simone?' I call. 'Lauren? I know you are in here.'
I sidestep a shower of dust and rubble from a damaged section of the roof as I walk warily towards where I can sense some telepathic signal. Even so close and in the same facility, the signal, which obviously belongs to the other White, the girl I have been able to sense for a while now, is constantly fading in and out of existence.
Closer to the source of the signal, more bodies are haphazardly piled up with their weapons broken around them. The piles are silent; their assailant having been thorough. No one moans in their death throes, nor does a limb twitch. The overhead bulb winks out, and I switch immediately to infrared; coming upon a large room at the end of a hallway where I know I will find everyone I am looking for. The door is ajar by a breath, the lighting in the room a harsh white, and the smell wafting off it is of pungent iron.
Blood.
'Come in, Claire,' Lauren calls. 'Don't be shy.'
I push open the door, wary of being ambushed. I have switched out of infrared, and my sensitive eyes adjust to the strong light.
Across from the door and me, Lauren, looking eerie in her makeup of caked blood, sits on a pristine white chair; lean, muscular legs crossed in an alluring, gory dress. Dr Simone is at her feet, roughened and bloodied up, with a look of defeat in her eyes. 'You shouldn't have come,' the doctor whispers. 'Now, we are all going to die.' Her eyes roll into the back of her head for a second in a momentary loss of consciousness.
Someone else is in the room: she looks like a child, but she is not—or can't. Her white hair—from her White heritage—is stained with her own blood. She is the telepathist who calls me mom. A hole glares at the room from her midriff, mortal enough for someone as sickly as she is. But, despite her agony, she smiles at me: Mom.
My rage ignites in a telepathic storm. The wind roars my rage: 'Lauren!', I bellow, but she only smiles my way in smug satisfaction.
It all makes sense now: who the telepathic girl is, since I have unhindered access for the first time to Dr Simone's mind. My rage burns against the doctor, who didn't let sleeping dogs lie. My rage burns against Lauren, who has taken the life of an innocent. Or one who is this time innocent. My rage burns against a great many people.
My telepathy, shored up by the rest of my powers, connects with the girl whose identity I now sadly know. Our White powers potentiate and unlock each other. My telepathy covers the whole town, the whole state, the whole country, the whole continent. I am suddenly in more than a billion minds at once.
I appear before Augusta Lycaone in her personal royal chambers in Europe, enraged like a fiend from another iteration. 'Augusta Lycaone!' I scream in unhinged, Elderwood rage.
End of Part One: The Girl who became Alpha.